History and Violence in Modernist Literature

Literature, through the different periods, has reflected human history and the contemporary world situation, and the modern literature is one of the most effective ways to understand the modern human and world environment. World history in the twentieth century is especially noted for the various wars, bloodsheds, violence etc and the modernist literature, including fictions and poems, has attempted to represent this human situation…

Introduction

The warlike nature of man is the most important theme of the celebrated novel by McCarthy, Blood Meridian (1985), and references to historical, religious and mystical themes, affairs and persons can be found on almost every page of the work. "Slough," published in his collected works Continual Dew in 1937, "is one of Betjeman's most famous poems and perhaps his harshest indictment of humanity: he rebukes us for our materialism, our insensitivity to our environment, our moral and sexual corruption and our indolent preference for the benefits of modern technology at the expense of traditional culture." (Gardner and Betjeman, 162) Therefore, both the literary pieces significantly deal with the relationship between history and violence in the modern world.
The novel by McCarthy has ever been acclaimed as one of the best modernist fictions dealing with violence and connecting it with history. "Blood Meridian (1985) is the alpha and omega of the novel of violence... ...

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